A "coordination kaleidoscope"

Modern academic literature highlights the challenge of coordinating the flows of organizational knowledge faced by global companies. As a solution to deal with the problem of coordinating knowledge flows, corporations establish particular organizational units known as "corporate universities". This study explores how a "corporate university" established and operated by a Russian transnational corporation Severstal functioned in order to coordinate the flows of organizational knowledge. The metaphor of the "coordination kaleidoscope" is introduced in this study - to provide an understanding of how Severstal Corporate University managers employed a variety of coordination mechanisms in terms of structure and accountability in order to coordinate knowledge flows. As a result of perceiving coordination in terms of a "coordination kaleidoscope", a new framework is proposed suggesting an understanding of coordination based on the interaction between "actors", "spaces" and "logics". Considering the coordination phenomenon in terms of interaction between "actors", "spaces" and "logics" may open up new frontiers of research in both knowledge management literature and organizational studies.

Autorentext

Victoria Konovalenko graduated with a Ph.D. degree in business economics from the University of Nordland, Bodø, Norway in 2012. She also holds a bachelor and a master degree in business administration from the Baltic State Technical University "VOENMEH", St-Petersburg, Russia.